​By Mansour Albakr, PHRi, SHRM-CP
16 January 2018
HR Strategic Framework
A company exists in a business environment made up of customers and clients, their end users, competitors, government regulations, and other conditions in which they do business. Everything in HR is about meeting the needs of a company customers better than the competition.
 
In the context of a business environment, a company has its own Vision, Strategy, Priorities and Goals that allow it to win in the business environment. The effectiveness of these is measured simply by the ability to have customers buy their products or services, and not their competitors. Everything HR does must focus on assisting the organization implement its business strategy.
 
For a company to implement its strategy, it must have the core capabilities to support the strategy. This does not mean competencies, but the fundamental core abilities that a company needs to compete and win in the marketplace. For example, one such capability is to bring new services or products to a market quickly, or to deliver services in a creative and unique ways, or to deliver services to precise client specifications and terms. Organizational capabilities are created through a co-ordination of people, technological and financial resources.
 
The prime role of company leaders is to effectively manage their people to develop the corporate capabilities to allow it to win in the marketplace. At the same time, everything that HR does should be focused on leveraging those human competencies to create capabilities that allow a company to win with its strategy in the marketplace. This is how talent aligns with the market, and why all HR work must focus on leveraging human talent.

​HR Core Processes
The below 5 HR core processes are the levers that the organization has at its disposal to maximize its talent and the competencies that individuals bring. They are integrated, not separate, and a change in one area impacts the others: an OD effort that redesigns a work flow needs to look at the impacts on the people, the impact on employee’s well-being, and the new performance issues. Every one of these processes also has a strategic and tactical component: a change in benefits affects business profit and raw costs, but can improve motivation.
  1. Workforce Planning & Staffing: This is the process of identifying, planning, projecting, and getting the right people today, and knowing what a company needs for tomorrow. It is about methods to attract, integrate and retain talent.
  2. Organizational Development: This is the process that examines organizational processes and systems to ensure they are aligned with the business strategy and customer needs. Planning, measurement, structure, work flow, and budgets can all be developed to enable good work systems and practices.
  3. Performance Management: Once the essential talent has been hired and good processes are in place, an effective process needs to be in place to ensure a company gets the outcomes that it desires by identifying, reporting, measuring and tracking its performance, in everything it does.
  4. Learning & Development: Talent needs change over time, and there is a critical need for a learning and development process to continue building existing talent.
  5. Employee Relations: This process focuses on the needs of individual employees, providing support so that employees can work effectively and sustain their efforts over time. It is also about managing the relationship between the employee and the needs of the larger organization.
​​How HR services will be delivered?
HR services will be delivered by center of excellence, HR service center, and HR business partners. The service delivery is as follows:

Center of Excellence
Center of excellence are comprised of teams of technical HR experts (e.g., recruitment, compensation design, and organization development) who are shared by the business units. Center of excellence provide strategic, design and consultative services to HR business partners and assist the HR service center in resolving complex issues.
 
HR Service Center
The HR service center is a shared service that responds to employee inquiries and processes HR transactions to significantly reduce HR business partner and center of excellence involvement in routine administrative tasks and inquiries (e.g., benefits, payroll, and data maintenance).
 
HR Business Partners
HR business partners are dedicated to providing business unit specific strategic and consultative services to executives and line managers related to the people-related issues impacting their business unit. Business partners “broker” technical talent (e.g., recruitment services, compensation design, and organization development) from the center of excellence to deliver HR solutions.

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